While the ship was sinking a few German seamen gathered at the stern and waved their ensign to and fro before going down with the ship.
The Kent was hit thirty-seven times altogether, but suffered no damage affecting her seaworthiness. Her wireless telegraphy transmitting instruments were smashed to pieces by a shell, which passed through the wireless office. She was thus unable to report the result of her action, and caused the Commander-in-Chief some anxiety regarding her fate. The receiving instruments, however, were intact, so all the wireless signals made by the Commander-in-Chief inquiring as to her whereabouts were taken in and read, though she was powerless to reply. The upper works on the starboard side presented a sorry spectacle, but the armour, though hit, was unpierced. Only two shots burst against the unarmoured part of the ship's side, one making a hole about four feet square just before the foremost starboard 6-inch gun on the main deck, and the other a hole of about equal size on the same side immediately below the after shelter deck.
A German officer who was saved said that they had heard by wireless that the British had "blown up the harbour" at the Falklands, and had fled to the west coast of Africa! He also stated that the Nürnberg had not been refitted for three years, and that her boilers were in a very bad state, which was borne out by some of them having burst during the chase.
Each seaman 6-inch gun's crew had five Royal Naval Reservemen in it, and their conduct speaks volumes for the all-round efficiency of the men that the Navy has drawn from the Reserve during the War.
The total casualties in the Kent amounted to 16 men, 5 of whom were killed, whilst 3 of the wounded afterwards died of their wounds.
Commander Wharton, of the Kent, gives a remarkably realistic description of the closing scenes: "It was strange and weird all this aftermath, the wind rapidly arising from the westward, darkness closing in, one ship heaving to the swell, well battered, the foretop-gallant-mast gone. Of the other, nothing to be seen but floating wreckage, with here and there a man clinging, and the 'molly-hawks' swooping by. The wind moaned, and death was in the air. Then, see! Out of the mist loomed a great four-masted barque under full canvas. A great ghost-ship she seemed. Slowly, majestically, she sailed by and vanished in the night." This was the same ghost-ship that had appeared in the middle of the action fought by the battle-cruisers—a very fitting apparition, which upholds the legend that one always appears at a British naval engagement. Meeting one of the officers of this sailing vessel later on in the Dardanelles, it was revealed that she had been out at sea so long that she was unaware that war had even been declared, until she suddenly found herself a spectator of two naval actions on the same day.
A silk ensign, presented to the ship by the ladies of Kent, was torn to ribbons in the course of the day. The pieces, however, were carefully collected by Captain J. D. Allen, and returned to the donors, who sewed them together. This ensign now hangs in Canterbury Cathedral. A new silk ensign was given to the ship by the ladies of the county of Kent, and was hoisted on the first anniversary of the battle, December 8th, 1915.